Officer accused in deadly beating of Tyre Nichols allegedly assaulted jail inmate, 2016 lawsuit says

Considered one of 5 former Memphis, Tennessee, law enforcement officials accused of fatally beating 29-year-old Tyre Nichols during a traffic stop this month was accused in 2016 of taking part in a jail assault that left an inmate unconscious, in accordance with a federal civil rights grievance.

The grievance, filed in April 2016 in U.S. District Court docket in Tennessee, mentioned the officer, Demetrius Haley, was one among three corrections officers alleged to have assaulted Cordarlrius Sledge whereas he was behind bars in Shelby County, in accordance with the swimsuit.

The swimsuit, which Sledge filed with out a lawyer, was dismissed in 2018 after a choose discovered he didn’t correctly serve one of many defendants with a summons.

Decide Thomas Anderson didn’t tackle Sledge’s allegations within the March 2, 2018, order.

Based on the grievance, Sledge mentioned that on Could 16, 2015, the officers searched his cellblock on the Shelby County Division of Corrections, which homes inmates serving misdemeanor sentences and felony jail phrases of as much as 12 years.

The officers accused him of flushing “contraband” after they noticed smoke within the space the place he was, in accordance with the swimsuit.

Sledge accused Haley and one other officer of punching him within the face, in accordance with the swimsuit. A 3rd officer picked Sledge up and slammed him face first into the sink and onto the ground, the swimsuit alleges.

“After that I blacked out,” Sledge mentioned within the swimsuit, including that he awoke within the jail’s medical unit.

Sledge mentioned he needed the officers to be “held for his or her actions,” the swimsuit says.

Reached by telephone Tuesday, Sledge declined to remark.

Haley didn’t reply to a request for remark Tuesday. Efforts to succeed in the 2 different officers have been unsuccessful. A lawyer who represented Haley and one of many different officers didn’t reply to a request for remark Tuesday; neither did a spokeswoman for the Memphis mayor’s workplace.

The Shelby County Division of Corrections didn’t reply to a request for remark Tuesday evening.

In a court docket submitting from June 2017, Haley and a second officer acknowledged looking out Sledge after he allegedly flushed contraband, however they denied beating him. In a separate submitting later that yr, they argued the swimsuit ought to have been dismissed as a result of Sledge didn’t correctly comply with the jail grievance course of system.

The choose dismissed Sledge’s grievance after he failed to supply an accurate tackle for a defendant who couldn’t be situated.

Within the case of Nichols, who died three days after a Jan. 7 visitors cease, Haley and four other officers were fired after an administrative evaluate accused them of violating a number of insurance policies, together with use of extreme pressure, in the course of the cease.

Preliminary findings from an autopsy released Tuesday by attorneys for Nichols’ household present he suffered “in depth bleeding brought on by a extreme beating” earlier than his dying. The Shelby County health worker’s workplace has not launched an official reason for dying. Nichols’ household employed a forensic pathologist to evaluate his case.

After having reviewed physique digicam video of the visitors cease, the household’s attorneys compared the beating to the one Rodney King suffered in Los Angeles in 1991.

This text was initially revealed on NBCNews.com